Inspirational Kitchen Ideas

In a matter of weeks we’ll be finally moving into our first owned home as a family. When we were initially searching for our dream house, we had a list as long as our arms as to what we wanted. Garage, garden, off road parking, 4 bedrooms, downstairs cloakroom and so on. So why didn’t we buy the first one that checked everything on the list? It turns out that the kitchen was actually the sticking point. Without realising it, the first room I went to in any house was the kitchen, and the reason I turned down most houses was the kitchen! They were either too big, too small, badly decorated or just plain wrong. So, when we went into the kitchen in the house we have bought – I knew straight away this was our home! Kitchens really do, in my opinion, make the house – so with this in mind, we’ve been looking for some really inspirational kitchen ideas, to start our new house off with a bang.

Inspirational Kitchen Ideas

Bi-Fold Doors

I honestly can’t remember the first time I saw bi-fold doors in a kitchen (to be honest it was probably on TV) but the moment I saw them, I KNEW they were what I wanted! In case you’re not sure, uk made bifold doors are doors made of panes of glass (just like french windows) that open right up and stacks like a concertina against a wall. They can be sliding or folding, and the best thing is that they bring the outside right in! I would absolutely love to be able to open the whole of the kitchen wall and to bring the garden into the kitchen – imagine those summer days when the kids could run back and forth with no doors slamming! Just thinking about it brings a smile to my face.

I also have a real thing about light and I want our new house to have as much light flooding into it as possible. I’d resigned myself to having french doors, which are great and you can obviously open them up further, but with bifold doors there is nothing blocking any of the light and it just comes flooding in. I can’t think of anything more perfect than the sun flooding through the whole of the kitchen in the morning, and even the thought of watching the snow falling outside my beautiful bi-fold doors makes me feel calm!

One Long Island

Bear with me on this one! We all know what a traditional kitchen looks like right? There are always cupboards on the walls and cupboards underneath them, with a work surface on top. The oven, hob, dishwasher, washing machine etc are all integrated into the cupboards along the walls, and, if you are lucky, you may have an island in the middle! But why?? Why does EVERY kitchen look like this? Well, one of our inspirational kitchen ideas is to turn that on it’s head! We are planning on having one long island that goes right down the middle of the kitchen, with all of the cupboards underneath it. Nothing on the walls – AT ALL!! Then at the far end there will be a breakfast bar which will seamlessly integrate with the island.

As far as we have thought it, the only issue we will have is our American style fridge freezer (another of our inspirational kitchen ideas – we don’t actually own one yet!). So we’ve decided to have the fridge freezer right up by the kitchen door and a large cupboard on the opposite side of the door for balance! Otherwise, everything else, including the hob, oven and dishwasher, will be integrated into the long island.

We can see SO many benefits to this. Firstly there will be an enormous amount of work space right through the kitchen, which is something I’m always moaning about needing more of. Then the kids will be able to reach all the things they need to without the need for steps for me to trip over! And finally, having an integrated breakfast bar will mean we are much more likely to all sit together and the kids can sit there doing homework whilst I’m cooking. Utter perfection!

So that’s as far as we’ve got with our inspirational kitchen ideas so far. I can absolutely picture our new kitchen in my head, and although I know there’s going to need to be a lot of work and it’s going to cost a good amount of money, it’s absolutely going to be so worth it!